


He Said/He Said

by skyenapped



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Blackmail, Established Relationship, False Accusations, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mentions of Suicide Attempt, Open to Interpretation, Vague Ending, kind of a disaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 17:40:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17512994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyenapped/pseuds/skyenapped
Summary: Mike's starting to wish he'd never opened the letters at all.





	He Said/He Said

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this last year and then forgot about it. Back on my bullshit of putting these two in ridiculously dark and polarizing situations because I'm awful! Enjoy but also read the tags!
> 
> I really miss working on my old fics but I can't seem to find the inspiration anymore so I'm kinda at a standstill with those, unfortunately.

 

*

  


The overwhelming majority of any type of correspondence Harvey received was electronic. Snail mail was uncommon for everyone nowadays, particularly those with access to literally every type of instant, non-written communication, so neither he or Mike frequently checked the mailbox.

On a Wednesday, though, Mike had been home with the flu for three days, bored and lonely and stir crazy. He cleaned the condo up and down, even though it was already pretty immaculate, looked around for literally anything else to keep him busy. He felt like shit, but his fever had broken and Harvey wouldn’t be home for several more hours, and he wasn’t accustomed to feeling so...useless. Admittedly, he’d also become quite clingy--to say the least--over the last eight months that he and Harvey had been dating. Probably long before that, too--who was he kidding--and even more so since they’d started living together. So finding something to do was less to distract himself from being sick as much as it was to stop thinking about being alone for any period of time.

He decided to venture to the deli a few blocks away, pick up dinner, and come home.

When Mike returned, he checked the mailbox--just the idea alone felt archaic, but it had been several days--and to his surprise there were three letters. He took them and headed back upstairs, shuffling through as the elevator ascended. The first was work-related, addressed to Harvey with the postmark of an ally firm, and Mike recognized the name of it because he’d worked the case with Harvey. _Boring,_ he thought, and once back inside the condo, he tossed it on the counter.

The next envelope was from Marcus and his wife, addressed to both Harvey _and_ Mike, which made Mike feel all warm inside because people were now associating him with Harvey in personal terms, not just in the professional sense. Smiling, he set that letter down on the counter as well. He could open it, Harvey wouldn’t care, but it was his brother, so Mike decided to let him have the honors.

In his hands he held the last envelope, and quickly frowned, realizing there was no return address. Just a stamp confirming it was sent locally, and the name _Harvey Specter_ in messy handwriting.

Mike wondered briefly what it might be before losing interest, tossing it on top of the rest of the mail, and turning his attention to more important things, like eating and counting down the hours until Harvey would walk through the door.

 

*

Six months later, a familiar-looking letter came. Same off-white envelope, same scratchy penmanship, but still no return address. Mike wondered a bit longer this time, but didn’t open it. He left it on the table for Harvey. The next day it was gone, and Mike forgot all about it.

About three weeks after that, Mike was sorting through what was still left unpacked from when he’d moved in. It wasn’t much--some books, some pictures--since he’d never had all that much to his name, anyway. Looking for a place to stash it for now--so he could at least throw the box away and make the whole living-with-Harvey-thing feel more permanent--he opened the bottom drawer of their nightstand--the one on Harvey’s side of the bed--dropped his things inside and closed it. Almost. Something was stuck behind the drawer and it wouldn’t shut all the way. He tried forcing it, but that didn’t work. Eventually, he sighed and took it off it’s hinges. A stack of about fifteen envelopes, held together with an elastic, were crunched up against the back of the nightstand. Mike reached in and pulled them out.

This time, upon realizing they were all from the same person, the same person who’d sent the last two he’d seen--because he recognized the handwriting--he didn’t waste any time opening them. It occurred to him that it was strange, that Harvey would have put a stack of letters there, but he didn’t expect anything, well...bad.

Inside the first one was only a check. A really, really big check. From Harvey’s bank. Mike scanned it curiously. It was written out to a _Princeton Taylor._

_Fifteen thousand dollars and 0/100._

“What the fuck?” Mike muttered. He scrambled to open another one. It read the same: _Pay to the order of: Princeton Taylor. Amount: Fifteen thousand dollars and 0/100._ So did the next, and the next, and the next, all dating back nearly three years.

The last one seemed to be the most recent--about six months old, probably the one Mike had seen and previously dismissed. It was opened, but the contents were intact. Still, the check was written out to the same person. The difference was, this time, the amount had doubled. _Thirty thousand dollars and 0/100._ And there was a note inside, scrawled hurriedly on what appeared to be the kind of paper torn from the pad of a waiter or waitress. Mike didn’t know if Princeton was a gender neutral name or not. He shrugged and looked it over.

_Harvey,_

_I quit going to my appointments so I don’t need your blood money anymore. Stop sending it to me. I can’t sleep at night because every time I move, you find my address. I’m never going to tell anyone what happened, so please just leave me alone._

_Princeton_

It was surprisingly polite, considering the pain that bled through the words. Confused, Mike tucked it and the check back in the envelope and put them back into the lower drawer.

 

*

Harvey’s explanation went something like this: the checks were intended for a disgruntled ex-client whose case he had accidentally fucked up. He felt bad and, he confessed, tried to avoid bad press by quietly paying the person damages under the table.

“I know it seems shady, Mike, but I promise, I was just trying to do the right thing. Obviously they’re too proud to accept the money, so I’ll stop sending it.”

Mike would’ve been convinced had he not found the note accompanying the most recent check. Nothing about it sounded like it was written by a client.

_Blood money._

_I can’t sleep at night._

_Please leave me alone._

_Never going to tell._

The words went round and round in Mike’s head, tormenting him for weeks after he let Harvey think he believed him. When Mike pried even more, Harvey gently ended the conversation and changed the topic, in such a smooth, easy way that Mike barely noticed until later on when he noticed that he _hadn’t_ noticed. Harvey was just that good.

The guarded, suspicious, always-on-alert feelings Mike used to have--undoubtedly a sub conscious self-defense mechanism--had died down since being with Harvey, since he felt safe and happy for the first time in his life. He never, ever, ever suspected that Harvey might lie to him--but there was something about that letter, about those checks, that just didn’t add up.

And, Mike decided, if Harvey wasn’t going to tell him the truth, he’d find out himself.

 

*

Surprisingly, there was--at first--no internet carbon footprint belonging to a Princeton Taylor. No Facebook, no hits on Google, no pictures, no social media trail at all. It was almost as if the person didn’t exist. But Mike was a lawyer--a good one--and Princeton Taylor wasn’t exactly a common name, even in New York. It took a little more persistence but then, finally: jackpot.

Tucked away in the online trenches, Mike found what he figured had to be the right person, if only because there literally was no one else. It just wasn’t what he was expecting. Part of him had wanted to believe Harvey so badly that he hoped it would be the aging, bitter ex-client Harvey had described, but the picture Mike was looking at on the archives page of Fordham University wasn’t that at all.

It was a young man with dark brown hair and piercing green eyes, a shy smile on his face. In the article, dated April 19th, 2011, he was being lauded for landing a year-long internship with--

Mike froze, muttering to himself, _Wait, what?_

 _Pearson Hardman,_ the article continued. Mike blinked, took a deep breath, and re-read it, wondering if he might actually be hallucinating.

_Princeton Skyler Taylor, 20, of Queens, NY, was chosen to intern for one year at Manhattan’s prestigious corporate law firm, Pearson Hardman. Taylor, a junior dual major in pre-law and political science, said the opportunity to work alongside some of the City’s finest attorneys “feels like a dream.” Taylor’s proctor, attorney Harvey Specter, commented, “Princeton’s essay and interview were the best I’ve seen in all the years we’ve offered internships. I have no doubt he’ll excel here and in all of his future endeavors.”_

Mike didn’t know what to do. Once he finally wrapped his head around the fact that Harvey had lied to him--really, really lied--he still had more questions than answers. Part of him wanted to confront Harvey with this information...the rest of him thought maybe he should finish what he started.  


 

It took him two and a half weeks to track Princeton Taylor down. His efforts led him to, of all places, a seedy diner in a less savory part of Queens. When Mike walked in, the pungent smell of grease and over-fried food hit him and he wrinkled his nose. He wasn’t above this kind of establishment by any means, but he certainly hadn’t been to one in a very long time.

It wasn’t where he’d expected his fishing expedition to lead. If the mysterious Princeton Taylor had been a junior at Fordham in the spring of 2011, it meant he graduated in 2012. If he’d gone to law school straight away, he would’ve--theoretically--been out of college by 2015; over two years by this point. Surely, Mike thought, he’d have long ago landed a position _somewhere_ as an associate. Anything but serving up trays of fries all day, and yet, as Mike stood and watched, that’s exactly what the young man was doing.

At half past 7pm, the diner wasn’t busy--but from the state of it, the messy, unswept floors, and the line of sweat Princeton was wiping off his face...Mike figured it had been absolutely packed at one point during the day.

Princeton appeared mostly the same as he had in the picture taken six years earlier, except that he didn’t look as if he’d slept much since.

“Just one, sir?”

Mike had zoned out already. “Huh? What?”

“Is it just you tonight?” Princeton was standing a few feet before him, holding a menu, waiting for a reply.

“Um…” Mike almost said no, out of habit, because he never went anywhere without Harvey. It was always ‘table for two’ these days. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s just me.”

Princeton offered him a forced but polite smile and led him to a booth in the back, which thankfully seemed to be cleaner.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“A...just a coke, thanks.”

When Princeton returned with the soda, Mike intentionally asked if there were any specials, what he suggested, how much everything cost. He knew he was being a pain in the ass--he’d worked minimum wage jobs, too--but he needed that time to study Princeton’s face. For what, Mike didn’t know, but there was at least one thing he picked up on: if there had ever been a light in the young man’s eyes--like the one Mike had seen in his picture--it had long since burned out.

Mike ate quietly--the food was better than expected--watching Princeton but not too conspicuously. He wondered if this was his second job. He knew from experience that first and second year lawyers didn’t make a lot of money. Surely Princeton had a ton of student loans to pay back. Except there was something about him that just sort of screamed that no, this was his only job, and he was here all the time, and he was more than a little frazzled and despaired but very used to masking most of that with professionalism and casual friendliness.

If this was the same Princeton--and Mike knew it was--why had he been returning $15,000 checks for years? Better yet, why was Harvey sending them in the first place? Mike had so many questions and he’d come prepared to ask them, except now he felt like the moment had passed, and he wasn’t sure how to even start that conversation.

He was supposed to be more clever than this.

_Think, Mike. Think._

Time dwindled down, though, and Mike couldn’t do it. Princeton looked lost in his own world, scurrying around, cleaning tables, carrying dishes to the kitchen, sweeping, mopping, working the cash register, seating patrons and taking orders--quite clearly doing the job of about six people. Whatever the checks had been about, the note Princeton had sent along with the last one had seemed unsettlingly ominous, and Mike realized halfway through his meal that he hadn’t planned out well enough how to ask about something like that.

He decided he’d have to go about this a different way. _What other way?_ He could tell Harvey he knew he lied about the client. _No, that will just start a fight._ He could forget about it all together. _No chance._

 _Oh well,_ Mike thought. He decided to go home for the night and figure it out later. At least he knew where to find him, and judging by Princeton’s body language, he really needed this job and he probably wasn’t a flight risk.

So Mike stood up and headed to pay at the register--it was one of those places--and Princeton quickly met him there.

“Was everything okay?”

Mike nodded. “It was great, thanks.”

Princeton smiled and looked down at Mike’s bill. He looked utterly exhausted, and Mike had no idea how he was staying so courteous.

“It’ll be $13.47.”

Without thinking anything of it, Mike slipped a credit card from his wallet and handed it over. It wasn’t until Princeton had already swiped it and looked at it that Mike realized--it was Harvey’s.

Princeton’s face visibly paled, but he said nothing, handed Mike the card and the receipt. Mike reached for a pen, but then had the quick thinking to consider that Princeton probably wasn’t going to accept a tip from a guy with Harvey Specter’s Visa, especially if he’d been systematically turning down thousands of dollars for years. But Mike wasn’t one to not leave a tip, and it was pretty clear that Princeton needed one, and had earned one, so Mike said thank-you and then left a ten in cash back on the table.

 

Outside, Mike shook his head, muttering under his breath, _Fuck._ He knew who Princeton was and where he worked. He knew he’d gone to Fordham. He knew he’d completed an internship at the firm back when it was still Pearson Hardman. He knew Harvey had been paying him-- _paying him off?--_ for God knows how long. He also knew, now, that just the sight of Harvey’s name on a credit card made the color drain from Princeton’s face. And yet, Mike still had no idea why. He was missing a major piece of the puzzle, and it scared him because he was starting to realize that the information he was missing was _what did Harvey do?_

Much to Mike’s surprise, he only made it several yards down the sidewalk before he heard a familiar voice shout at him to “Wait!” from the doorway of the restaurant. Startled, Mike turned around. Princeton jogged up to him, a little breathless.

“Are you okay?” Mike asked.

Princeton ignored the question and asked his own, instead. “Who are you? Why do you have Harvey’s credit card?”

He was staring Mike down suspiciously and Mike didn’t know what to say. Eventually he decided on the truth, since that had gotten him in significantly less trouble than lying had in his life so far.

“We work together.”

Princeton still looked skeptical. “Do all your coworkers pay for your food?”

“He’s also my boyfriend, so yeah, he usually pays for my food. You’re really nosy, by the way.” _Says the person who Googled someone for four days straight,_ Mike scolded himself.

For what felt like a full minute, Princeton just stared back at Mike, and Mike could _see_ the wheels moving in his brain, but he didn’t know what the kid was thinking.

“How old are you?”

Mike frowned but answered regardless. “Twenty-four. How old are you? And why all the questions?” _You already know how old he is, stalker._

“Twenty-seven,” Princeton said, and slinked back a little. “I was just wondering.”

“Okay, well..” Mike considered this might be the only opportunity he had to open Pandora’s Box, but he waited too long, and ended up just saying, “I gotta go...so...have a good night.”

“Wait,” Princeton repeated, and Mike was on the precipice of becoming annoyed when suddenly Princeton was slapping a ten dollar bill against his chest, hard. His face was flushed and somewhere between anger and the verge of tears. “Take this back and tell Harvey to go fuck himself.”

Stunned, Mike took the bill purely out of reflex. _“What?”_

“I said, tell Harvey to go f--”

“Yeah, I got that part,” Mike interrupted, and he was starting to raise his voice. _Who exactly does this kid think he is?_  “Wanna say that again?”

Princeton evaded the question. “I know that you lawyers, you don’t eat at places like this. You don’t even live in Queens do you? So why are you here? Did Harvey send you? Tell him to stop. Please. Please tell him to leave me alone. I can’t do this anymore, I can’t, I keep looking over my shoulder, my whole life, I can’t---” His voice was pitching as he became more and more hysterical, and when he lifted his hands to his face, that’s when his longsleeves slid up and Mike made out two twin scars adorning each of his wrists. They were long and deep and absolutely vicious. _Suicide attempt,_ Mike realized, and his stomach dropped.

“I have--I have to go back to work,” Princeton said, chest heaving as he tried to pull himself together. “I’m sorry I freaked out on you. I don’t even know you. I just...I saw his name and...I’m really sorry.”

Mike almost let him walk away, but then…

“I know about the checks.”

And Princeton froze again.

Before he could flee, Mike stepped closer and tried to make his case as fast as possible. “The checks Harvey’s been sending you for three years, the ones you keep sending back to him, I found them, and I asked about them and--”

“Let me guess, he lied?”

“Yeah. How did you kn--”

Princeton dug the toe of his shoe into the concrete and his anxiety was glaring. “I’m his dirty little secret, why would he tell the truth?”

“What does that mean?” Mike asked. At this point, he refused to leave without any answers. And when Princeton didn’t reply, Mike pulled out all the stops--literally. He slid the note he’d found from the last check out of his pocket and held it up.

“Where did you get that?” Princeton tensed and blinked away the wetness in his eyes.

“I told you, I found the checks, I found all the letters.”

“What do you _want_ from me?”

“I wanna know what the hell is going on.” Mike told him. “Harvey didn’t send me here, okay? He’s at work. He doesn’t even know where I am. We live together, alright? That’s how I found the checks. And then I asked him about them, and you’re right, he lied. So I looked you up and I found that you made it into the Fordham student paper six years ago, and I know that you did an internship at my firm back when it was Pearson Hardman, and I know that Harvey was your proctor, and I know that, at some point, he started sending you money. A _lot_ of money. Judging by the part of this letter where you wrote you don’t need his blood money _anymore,_ I’m assuming at one point you did need it, and you cashed his checks up until about three years ago. And I’m just speculating here--correct me if I’m wrong--but Harvey’s not the type of person to hand out charity to people who don’t appreciate it, so there’s only one reason he’d keep sending you the checks even though you didn’t cash them.”

Princeton was looking away, listening, body bladed, arms crossed in an almost defensive position. “And what’s that,” he asked, deadpan.

“You blackmailed him.”

_“What?”_

Mike shrugged. “Why else would he keep sending the money? You sent it back twenty five times. Most people would take that as a ‘no thanks.’”

“Yeah, well…” Princeton’s eyes looked dark and dead. “I guess Harvey Specter isn’t most people and he doesn’t like to take no for an answer.”

“Listen,” Mike said, trying to level with the brunette. “I just want to know what happened between you and Harvey. I’m not trying to be a jerk.”

“You only want me to tell you that your precious boyfriend didn’t do anything wrong, that I’m the villain in this whole thing, so you can go home and let him fuck you and fall asleep with a clear conscience.”

Mike winced but then tossed up his hands, exasperated. “Well? Did he do something wrong or not? Because you seem to really be enjoying dragging this whole thing out. In fact, instead of opening his checks and putting them in a new envelope and writing his address on all of them and putting them _back_ in the mail, maybe just don’t open them in the fucking first place?”

That seemed to do the trick, because Princeton just swallowed hard and nodded, almost in agreement. “I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I’m really sorry. I have...I have to go back to work. Please...please don’t tell him where I work.”

“Fine,” Mike said. “One condition.”

“What?”

“This little meeting of ours stays a secret if you tell me the truth. And by the truth, I mean _everything_.”

It was pretty clear by the resigned look in Princeton’s eyes that it wasn’t the first time he’d been threatened. Wearily, he meekly agreed to Mike’s demand. “I’ll be off in thirty minutes.”

 

*

 

Mike waited for Princeton to return, wondering if the kid may have snuck out the back, but, after about thirty-five minutes, he appeared, this time with his coat and no apron.

He led them to a small bar a few blocks down. Soft music played in the background and the bar was pretty busy, but Mike spotted a table in the back, beside an empty stage, and deemed it quiet enough for a conversation.

At first, Princeton declined a drink. Then he claimed he didn’t drink at all, which Mike called bullshit on. Finally, he admitted he couldn’t afford to, and then looked panicked when Mike pulled out a credit card and started a tab.

“Relax, it’s mine,” Mike told him, when the waitress handed it back to him. He slid it across the table.

“Michael,” Princeton read, voice soft. He seemed to relax at the confirmation that Harvey was in fact _not_ paying for their whiskey.

“Just Mike,” Mike said, and holy shit, he thought, Princeton was really hell-bent on not taking a dime from Harvey. “Michael is too...formal.”

Princeton played with the ends of a napkin for a few minutes until their drinks came. He seemed to be dreading their conversation.

“You know a lot about me and I don’t know anything about you, so…”

It was clear that Princeton did not trust him, so Mike took pity and sighed, “Alright. I work at Pearson Specter--”

Princeton flinched like clockwork on the very first syllable in _Specter._

“Which I told you, but anyway, I just made junior partner. Um…” He tried to think of what else to say, but his life had been rather boring--eventful, but boring--up until he’d started his career and met Harvey. “I went to NYU for undergrad and then Harvard Law and then I ended up back here and somehow...somehow I ended up _here,_ so are you gonna talk now?”

The last sentence seemed to sail over Princeton’s head. “You went to Harvard?”

Mike sat back and smiled around the edge of his glass. “What, like it’s hard?”

Across from him, Princeton laughed briefly, but then downed almost half his whiskey in one swallow. “I wanted to go to Harvard after I graduated from Fordham,” he said, something wistful in his tone.

“So why didn’t you?”

He scoffed. “I didn’t graduate, for starters.”

“Oh.” Mike frowned. “Uh...why not?”

Princeton shrugged and dropped his head.

Mike pulled the article about Princeton from his memory. “4.0, coveted internships, full ride scholarship. What happened?”

“Harvey happened,” Princeton answered, drank the rest of his whiskey and flagged down the waitress. He turned toward Mike, “If you don’t mind, I’m getting another round.”

“Be my guest,” Mike muttered, watching Princeton intently, more and more disturbed by how he was acting, by what he was saying. For the second time that night, Mike pulled out the letter he’d found, and placed it on the table.

Princeton looked at it like it was a hot coal, and didn’t pick it up.

“That _is_ your handwriting, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“We had a deal, Princeton,” Mike continued. “You tell me what this is about, what all the checks are about, or I go home and I tell Harvey where to find you and the two of you can just clear this up together.”

“Please don’t do that.” Princeton had a tight grip around his drink, fingers tensed and slipping on the condensation.

“Tell me the truth and I won’t.”

“What if I tell you and you tell him anyway?”

“Well…” Mike folded his arms. “I’d say your best bet is to tell me the truth and hope I keep my word.”

“Wow. You sound just like him.” Princeton stared back bitterly. “You know what? I’m glad I never went to law school. You’re all assholes.”

He started to grab his coat and stand up when Mike stopped him, again. “Wait, Princeton. I’m sorry. Please don’t go. I’m not gonna tell him, okay?”

“Why the fuck should I trust you?” Princeton asked, but he reluctantly sat back down.

“Because I’m not the kind of person you think I am.”

“And what kind of person is that?”

“I’m guessing a rich, stuck-up jerk who was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and then stalked you on the internet and threatened you.”

Princeton shrugged. “That about covers it, yeah.”

“That’s not me,” Mike insisted. “I didn’t have shit when I was growing up. My parents got killed when I was eleven--you can look it up, I’m not fucking with you--I was on my own for a long time. I worked the same kind of job you’re working. I pulled the same hours. I only went to college because, as a ward of the state, they had to pay my tuition. And I only went to Harvard Law because I got a full scholarship. I wasn’t born into this, Princeton. I haven’t let them take my soul yet.”

As if deciding whether to trust Mike, Princeton listened intently and studied the younger man across from him, finding only sincerity. “You love him,” he observed.

“What?”

“Harvey,” Princeton said, and then recoiled a little. He tipped back another shot glass and added, “You love him. Don’t you?”

Mike nodded helplessly. “Yeah, I do.”

“And you want me to tell you the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. But I can’t do that, Mike.”

“Why not?”

“Because...I just can’t. And I feel like I’m gonna have a panic attack because I know that if I don’t, you’re gonna call him and tell him where I work, and then I’ll have to quit my job, and then I won’t have any money to pay rent, and--”

“Whoa, slow down,” Mike interrupted. “I’m sorry I threatened you. Listen, let’s start over. I won’t tell him. I swear. I promise. You have my word. Just tell me the truth and you’ll never see me again.”

Princeton shook his head. “I’ve spent the last six years of my life trying to avoid this, Mike. I can’t risk it. I’m sorry.”

Frustrated, Mike raked his fingers over his face. He was not sober, and judging from the hazy look in Princeton’s green eyes, neither of them were.

“Did...did something happen while you were working with him?”

Princeton looked away, expression distant but thoughtful. “You know, I picked your firm, right? We got to apply to six internships that year. I got chosen by four. And I picked Harvey’s.” He shook his head and continued to dance around Mike’s question. “Worst decision of my life.”

Mike kept pressing. _Press until it hurts._ “Why?”  
And Princeton kept giving half-clues and they both got steadily drunker, and Mike was running out of patience, but he knew if he waited it out, if he just waited _long enough,_ that Princeton would get sufficiently wasted and Mike could wear him down; wear the truth out of him. Mike was nothing if not perseverant.

Six straight whiskeys in, and Mike’s brain was calm except for the part still vying to know what Princeton was hiding. What _Harvey_ was hiding.

It was probably cruel, but Mike was desperate. He reached for the letter and read it out loud.

_“I quit going to my appointments so I don’t need your blood money anymore. Stop sending it to me. I can’t sleep at night because every time I move, you find my address. I’m never going to tell anyone what happened, so please just leave me alone.”_

“What did you mean by appointments? What appointments?”

Princeton cringed and turned away. His face was flushed and his were eyes were bloodshot and his words were starting to run together.

“I was going to a shrink,” he said. “And then I decided that drinking away my problems was easier than living with the fact that Harvey was paying my bills. Which is why I told him to stop.”

“You called it blood money.”

“Yeah, well.”

“So? Was he...was he paying you to be quiet?”

“Ding ding!” Princeton raised his glass in a toast and then practically poured the liquor down his throat. “I really thought you’d be smarter,” he remarked flatly.

“I _am_ smart. But I’m not a mindreader,” Mike told him. “What was it? Something to do with a case, right? Maybe he crossed a line and you didn’t want to go along with it, and you were gonna report him to the Bar, is that it?”

“Yeah, Mike, I spent four years in therapy because Harvey perjured himself over a Ponzi scheme. Give me a break.”

“Then what, Princeton? _What?”_

“I’ve told you enough for you to figure it out if you’d take two seconds to try instead of giving me the Spanish Inquisition,” Princeton snapped. “There’s only two ways this ends, and they both suck for me, okay? Either I don’t tell you and you go home and tell him we met and he kills me because you got too close to the truth. Or I tell you and you don’t believe me and you tell him and _he still kills me._ He’ll kill me, Mike. _”_

Mike opened his mouth and then stopped, remained quiet and tried to thread together all of the bits of information he’d been given: The internship. That Princeton dropped out of college a year shy of graduation. The checks. The therapy. The letter. The way he flinched at Harvey’s name. The scars. Harvey’s lying. Everything Princeton had said that Mike had dismissed as irrelevant, all flooded back.

_Tell him to stop. Please. Please tell him to leave me alone. I can’t do this anymore, I can’t, I keep looking over my shoulder my whole life._

_I’m his dirty little secret._

_I guess Harvey Specter isn’t most people and he doesn’t like to take no for an answer._

_Harvey happened._

_He’ll kill me._

“You’re really afraid of him,” Mike realized aloud.

Princeton didn’t look up from where he was sloshing around the remaining liquor in his glass. “No shit.”

“When did you try to kill yourself?”

_“What???”_

“I saw your wrists outside the diner. I’m guessing you didn’t slip on a pair of scissors. Cuts like that, you had to lose, what, three pints of blood?”

Princeton quickly removed his hands from the table and cradled his arms against his body protectively. His expression was full of shame, and he didn’t try to discount any of Mike’s observations. When he eventually looked up again, his eyes were full of tears.

Mike held his gaze. “What the hell did he do to you that was so bad you wanted to die?”

For a long time, maybe even a solid minute, Princeton didn’t respond and Mike didn’t push. Eventually, he said, barely more than a drunken whisper, “Even if you believe me, you’ll still take his side. And I know you don’t think he’ll really kill me, but _I know_ he will. He said he would. He almost _did.”_

There was only one thing Mike determined was worthy enough of a death threat. And it made his stomach churn violently, and all the whiskey he’d drank was threatening to come back up.

“I’m sorry,” was all he managed to say, and he just sat, staring across the table over a dozen empty glasses. “I’m so sorry.”

When Princeton spoke, his voice was sad, and scared, and exhausted--but not hostile. He kept his eyes anywhere except on Mike. “What are you sorry for?” he asked. “That your boyfriend raped me when I was 20 and then paid the hospital three hundred thousand dollars for the blood transfusion after I slit my wrists? Or that now you know he’s a rapist and you have to go home to him and pretend he’s not? Which part are you sorry for, Mike?”

Mike felt like his throat was closing up. His mouth was like cotton, his tongue sticking to his soft palate. He couldn’t say anything.

Princeton continued to avert his eyes. “I’m as good as dead if you tell him, so...maybe just give me a head’s up before you do.” With that, he slid out of the booth and stood up. “Thanks for the drinks,” he added, swaying a bit. “And be careful. I thought he gave a shit about me, too.”

Mike watched him start to leave, and then, for the third time that night, called out for him to stop. “You’re a liar,” he spit, against all of the nausea inside that was telling him otherwise.

Again, Princeton turned around, this time much quicker than before. He looked absolutely dead inside. “That’s what I expected you to say. But it doesn’t make any difference.”

“You’re still a liar,” Mike told him. “Harvey would never do that. You blackmailed him, I know you did, and I’m gonna figure out why.”

“Harvey’s a piece of shit,” Princeton snarled. “One day _you’re_ gonna figure it out and I really hope for your sake it’s before he does to you what he did to me.”

Before Princeton finished the sentence, Mike was on his feet and in his face. “You’re just trying to ruin his life!”

In one sudden movement, Princeton reached for a half-filled glass and immediately there was a splash of whiskey in Mike’s face, burning his eyes and dripping down his neck onto his shirt.

“Go to hell,” Princeton slurred, and just before storming off for good, he added, “Then you can be together.”

After about ten seconds of standing there alone, avoiding stares from curious patrons, Mike rushed into the bathroom, barely staggering into a stall before he leaned over and violently threw up.

 

*

When Mike stumbled through the doorway at home, Harvey was waiting. And Mike knew he looked disheveled and sweaty and _drunk_ and that he certainly smelled like fried food and whiskey and a long, disgusting subway ride.

“You just went out drinking by yourself on a Tuesday?” Harvey’s voice was more curious and amused than angry. “I’m getting insecure over here.”

“I wasn’t by myself,” Mike mumbled. He crossed Harvey’s path and went into the kitchen, grabbed a water bottle, and then made his way to the living room.

Harvey followed, a concerned expression on his face. “Alright then, I’ll bite. What’s going on?”

On the couch, Mike tucked his legs underneath him, leaned into the cushions, and didn’t look up when he said, “I know who he is, Harvey. So you don’t have to lie anymore.”

“Mike...what are you talking about? And how much did you drink?”

So Harvey was playing dumb, Mike could respect that. It’s how he’d gotten through most of his own life, anyway.

“I had about six shots of whiskey. They might’ve been doubles, I don’t know. He had about the same.”

“He?”

Mike rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, but for all his outward nonchalance, his stomach was still turning, over and over, trying to make sense of this bombshell. He was trying not to be sick again.

He was trying not to freak out.

“Princeton? God, Harvey, you write it down often enough, right?”

Suddenly, Harvey’s body went completely still, Mike looked up in time to see it, to watch the muscles in his arms flex, and his jaw when it tensed and remained set, and his eyes when they went all dark and steely.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low and calculated. “Whatever he told you is a lie, Mike. Whatever you think you know, you don’t.”

“All I know is that _you_ lied about who he was and why you’ve been sending him thousands of dollars for at least the last three years,” Mike said. He sat up and leaned forward, looking up at his boyfriend, his best friend, his boss, his, well, everything. “Harvey, you made up some bullshit story about making amends with a client because you didn’t win their case. I’ve _never_ lied to you, ever, but _you_ lied to my face, more than once.”

Harvey stepped closer, hands in his pockets. “That’s not what you’re upset about.”

“No, that’s what I _was_ upset about. Now I’m _upset_ because I just spent the whole night trying to get this guy to tell me what the fuck happened between you two and now I really, _really_ fucking wish I hadn’t.”

“And you’re mad at me because you went some vigilante mission to catch me in a lie? How long did it take you to find him? How’d that conversation go? ‘Hey, I’m Mike and I stalked you because I think my boyfriend’s been sending you money and I want to know why’?”

“I didn’t stalk him,” Mike groveled. “I looked him up. You do it all the time. I found out where he worked, it wasn’t hard.”

“And where is that?”

“Are you serious? That’s _exactly_ what he said you’d do!”

“What else did he say I did, Mike?” Harvey asked. He sat down on the edge of the coffee table, directly in front of Mike. “I know you want to tell me, so go ahead and get it out and calm down so I can tell you the truth.”

“Fine. But I’m not telling you where he works, and if you try to find out, I’ll tell him first.”

“Wow, you’ve known this kid all of what, a few hours? And you’re gonna throw yourself on a stake for him?”

Mike shook his head. “He’s terrified of you, Harvey. He said--”

“What, Mike?” Harvey coaxed. “What?”

“You _know_ what! You’re trying to get me to say it--”

“You’re damn right I’m trying to get you to say it. I want you to say it out loud so you can hear yourself and realize how _fucking insane_ it sounds! Seriously, Mike, don’t tell me you believe this shit.”

“I don’t...I don’t know what to believe.” Mike looked up helplessly. “Harvey I don’t _know_ what to believe. He told me...he said...he said you raped him. He said you’ve been paying him off, that you paid for his hospital bill and for his therapy--Harvey, what the fuck? Please tell me you didn’t rape a twenty year old and pay him thirty grand a year to keep quiet, _please.”_

“I don’t believe this,” Harvey whispered, rising angrily to his feet. “You don’t know who to believe? Really, Mike? Because I’d say you should believe me, you know, the man you’re in a relationship with? The person you’re living with? But what do I know, I’m a rapist, right?”

“No, Harvey, I didn’t say that--” Mike sniffed back what he knew was a wave of inevitable tears. He felt claustrophobic. “I’m just confused. I mean--why would he lie? Why would anyone _lie_ about that? Why’d you pay him, Harvey? You still won’t answer me. If you didn’t do it, _why_ are you _paying_ him?”

“I’m not _paying_ him because I did it, Mike, I’m paying him because I _didn’t!”_ Harvey shouted. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? You know what? I’m gonna tell you the truth, and if you believe me, fine, and if not then you need to pack your shit up and we need to re-think this entire situation because I can’t commit to someone who would believe a total stranger over me, who would even _think,_ for _two seconds_ that I’m capable of--”

 _“O-kay!”_ Mike’s voice was strained. “Harvey, please tell me. I’m not accusing you of anything, I swear I’m not, I wouldn’t do that.”

“Really? Because that sounds like _exactly_ what you’re doing.”

“No, I’m not. I just...I drank too much, Harvey. I got drunk and I couldn’t even think straight. He was saying all this horrible shit and I let it get to me. I don’t believe any of it, I never would think that, I just wanted to know who he was. I wasn’t trying to catch you in a lie, I was just curious, you know how I am, I never let anything go, I have to find out for myself. Tell me,” Mike was rambling and begging, breathless. “Tell me the truth, Harvey. I’m listening, I promise.”

Harvey hesitated, and then eventually sat down on the couch, angling his body toward Mike. He looked absolutely furious, and outraged, and betrayed, and Mike felt like the worst boyfriend on the planet for having even the slightest doubt at all. But something wasn’t right, something in the back of his brain and deep in the pit of his stomach was still curling, still buzzing. He waited.

“Like I said,” Harvey began. “I wasn’t paying him because I did anything wrong. I was paying him because I didn’t. But he said that I did, and if he told the police, my career would be ruined. I knew it would never go anywhere--he was a total basketcase from the day he showed up at the firm--but even just an accusation like that? It would be devastating. I’d never recover from that. So I did what I had to do. He wanted money, and I gave it to him.”

“He blackmailed you,” Mike said, and Harvey nodded.

“And I wish I had fought it, but I thought if he told anyone, the stigma would never go away. I’d always been the guy accused of rape, even though I didn’t do it.”

“But why...why didn’t you tell me?”

Harvey sighed. “When you found the checks, I panicked, and--”

“No, I mean…” Mike frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me a long time ago? We’ve known each other for four years. Harvey, we tell each other everything. I was going to find out eventually.”

“Honestly, Mike, I know this sounds bad but...I didn’t want you to know. The whole thing, it got so messy. I wasn’t trying to hide it from you, not like that, I just wanted to protect you from it. From everything. And I didn’t...I didn’t want to think for a second that you might not believe me.”

Mike was quiet for a moment and then looked into Harvey’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he croaked. “I’m sorry. I know it sounded like I didn’t believe you, Harvey, but I do, of course I do. Like I said, I just drank too much, and he was--”

“Saying horrible things, I know. He was always very convincing, Mike. It’s another reason I agreed to just pay him.”

“Why’d he stop taking your money, then? I mean, that’s what he wanted right? You were giving him a lot of it. I don’t understand why he was sending it back.”

“For two years he took every cent, Mike, make no mistake. I think he was afraid of getting caught, maybe, or he just decided to try to make something of himself. Either way, I kept sending it, just in case he was testing me. If he didn’t take the money, fine, but if he decided he wanted to, he was still getting it.” Harvey ran his hand over his face. “Mike, I know this whole thing...it sounds like a trainwreck. And it is. It was. But it’s not what it looks like. It’s not what he told you it is.”

Mike nodded, and they sat in silence for a while.

“He tried to kill himself."

“What?”

“He tried to kill himself,” Mike repeated, flashing back to the deep, ugly scars spanning the length of Princeton’s forearm. “He said you paid the hospital bill. He said it was three hundred grand.”

“I did and it was,” Harvey admitted. “I bet he left out the fact that he had no insurance and that I was the one who found him and called 911. I saved his life and got him out of debt and he cried rape.”

“Why would he do that? Like what the fuck is wrong with him? And what do you mean you found him?”

“What’s wrong with him, I don’t know. He had a lot of issues back when he worked with me. He was really unstable. He’d show up late, he had these...these crazy outbursts, and then he’d just crash and not speak at all for days. He did quality work, though, and he was smart, so I let it slide for a long time. But six months in and it was getting out of control. Jessica noticed and told me he had to go. When I told him I was revoking his internship, he lost it. I tried to give him some hope, you know, let him know he had so many other opportunities ahead of him and that he should just focus on school, that he was probably overwhelming himself.” Harvey paused and shrugged sadly. “I really did try to help him,” he continued. “I got a text from him the night he tried to commit suicide. He said he hated me, that I ruined everything for him and he had nothing to live for. I knew something was wrong, so I went to his place and that’s when…”

“When you found him,” Mike finished.

“Yeah. I thought it was too late, honestly. But they got him to the ER in time. He lost a lot of blood--it was...fuck, Mike, it was awful. The kid was a handful, he was...well..he was a disaster. But he was just a kid. I didn’t want something like that to happen. And if I’d known it would’ve, I’d never have let him go. I would’ve just let him finish the damn internship. But I didn’t know. I didn’t know he was _that_ fucked up.”

“Why...I mean when did he decide to say you...accuse you of everything?”

“After he got out of the hospital, he was angry. Like really, really angry. I wish I had an explanation for it, but I don’t. All I know is that he blamed me for everything. For losing his internship, for dropping out of school, for slitting his wrists...everything, he said it was all my fault and that if I didn’t make it up to him then he was going to go the police and tell them...well, you know.”

Mike put his hand on Harvey’s knee and leaned into him as a show of support.

“It was a nightmare, Mike. It was a total nightmare. I offered him money because I didn’t know what else to do. He had me in a corner.”

“And the therapy bills? He said you paid those too.”

“Believe it or not, going to a therapist? That was his idea. I just wish he’d gone to one before he met me.”

There was a lull in conversation and then Mike nuzzled closer to Harvey. “I’m so sorry if I acted like I didn’t believe you. I love you so much.”

“It’s okay, Mike.” Harvey kissed him on the forehead. “I love you, too.” He glanced at his watch. “2am. Ready for bed?”

Mike smiled sleepily, disentangling their limbs, and when Harvey stood up, Mike followed.

  


*

Two hours later, Mike jolted awake. At least, it felt like it. His eyes flew open and his heart was pounding and he swore his legs had jerked wildly, but he was still plastered to Harvey’s side, arms holding on tight as they did every night.

Slowly, so he wouldn’t wake Harvey, Mike rolled over onto his back and tried to regulate his breathing. The room was cold--Harvey kept it that way, and Mike was fine with it because he preferred to get his warmth by cuddling--but he was drenched in sweat.

 _A nightmare,_ he told himself silently. _Just a bad dream._

It had seemed so real, and it felt like it had lasted days. In it, Harvey was shouting, but Mike couldn’t understand the words. Princeton was standing in a corner, the phrase _He’ll kill me, Mike,_ pouring from his lips, just like the blood streaming from his wrists. Everything was echoes and loud, quivering voices, and blood, so much blood, and all Mike could see from where he was standing was a pair of green, terrified eyes, and then Harvey, in a white t-shirt, calmly making coffee while the world was shattering around them all.

  
And then Mike was wide awake, staring at the ceiling, too frightened to go back to sleep out of a fear the dream would continue. So he lied there, trying to calm down, his mind racing to the point that he felt almost out of control. He glanced over at Harvey, sleeping soundly, blissfully unaware of Mike’s distress, his chest rising and falling in a natural, normal cadence. And Mike wanted to wake him up, so badly, he wanted wake his boyfriend up and crawl into his arms and cry like he was five until Harvey consoled him, because that’s how traumatizing and vivid the nightmare had been. But something stopped Mike from reaching over, from saying Harvey’s name. Instead, he just kept his eyes open and tried to talk himself down from one of the worst anxiety attacks he could ever remember having.

Mike knew fear. He knew what it felt like and he knew what it sounded like and he knew what it looked like, because he’d experienced it firsthand in his life, more than once. He knew fear so well that he knew when it was real and when it was fake. Even the best actors in his favorite movies couldn’t fool him; there was just no convincing way to manufacture genuine, raw fear. And Mike had seen it in Princeton, heard it in his voice, picked up on the energy the other man had given off in overwhelming waves, and he knew that, if there was one thing Princeton wasn’t making up--it was that he was truly scared of Harvey.

Meanwhile, Harvey had had an answer for everything. When he’d explained it, it all made sense, and Mike believed him, through and through. He felt awful for having even given him the mere impression that he didn’t. He felt the need to make it up to Harvey in spades, to reassure him a million times a day that he was unequivocally on his side and his alone; it was them against the world.

Then it dawned on Mike as he laid there still struggling to calm down, replaying last night’s events from beginning to end in brutal lucidity--and God, his memory felt more like a curse in that moment--that there was something really wrong with all of that. And the problem wasn’t that he believed Harvey. It was that he believed Princeton too.

His heart was telling him, loud and clear, that Harvey did nothing wrong, would never do anything so deplorable. His intuition told him that Princeton couldn’t fabricate emotions so intense that Mike had literally puked from seeing them. The rational part of his brain told him what he didn’t want to confront: one of them was lying, and Mike couldn’t know _beyond a reasonable doubt_ which one was sleeping beside him.  
  
  
*  



End file.
